The Power of an Idea: Spinoza's Critique of Pure Will

Abstract

One of the most important claims in the Ethics is Proposition 49 of Part 2: In the Mind, there is no volition, or affirmation and negation, except that which the idea involves insofar as it is an idea.' With Spinoza's characteristic economy of expression, this proposition simultaneously embodies commitments to a representational account of mental states and to an understanding of belief solely in terms of the causal role of mental states. These dual commitments-so widespread in contemporary philosophyare in 2p49 tightly linked with Spinoza's views on mental actions and passions, the efficacy of representational content, the self-contained nature of the realms of thought and of extension, and the universal striving for selfpreservation. 2p49 thus represents, as I will show, a crystallization of much of Spinoza's metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Further, a particular theme of this paper is the way in which this proposition manifests various anti-Cartesian strands in Spinoza. Of course, as has been widely recognized, 2p49 is directed against Descartes' view that judgment or affirmation consists in part of an act of will separate from the idea affirmed, an act, one might say, of pure will. However, one aspect of the lack of full appreciation of the significance of 2p49 has been a failure to grasp how this criticism of Descartes is deeply connected with Spinoza's criticisms of Descartes on some of the other topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind that I just mentioned, and even, as I will argue briefly at the end, with Spinoza's criticism of Descartes' account of the causation of motion. 2p49 is thus not only a crystallization of Spinoza's philosophy of